Halloween was one of Kit’s favorite times of year but it was the first year that she hadn’t done Halloween with at least Mom and Dad so it was a little sad BUT it was not so sad because she was doing a group costume with Drew and Darlene instead, which was very fun. Grandpa Aaron had decided to help make them costumes, which meant that they were dressed as super realistic dinosaurs. Kit was a stegosaurus because those were the best dinosaurs, and Drew was a triceratops because they were the next best (and he hadn’t wanted to be a longneck) and Kit had even let Darlene be a t-rex because she was feeling extra nice and Darlene wasn’t good at things like Halloween so Kit had to be patient and teach her. Patience was important. Sometimes she sat down very still and held her breath to practice patience, mostly because Dad said it would work if she did it enough times. It hadn’t worked so far but that was probably because she hadn’t done it enough times.

There were some scary things getting to the party and even though the first one totally almost scared Kit, it did actually scare Darlene so the first year had taken it upon herself to jump in all her red-headed, stegosaurus fury, and yell at all the rest of them. To make sure that Darlene knew she was super safe, of course. Drew had just put an arm around Kit’s roommate, which Kit guessed was probably important too. Drew didn’t usually try to fight things like Kit did, which was okay because when you were fighting things you always needed someone to make sure nothing was sneaking up on you.

Anyway they’d all split up once they got to the actual party which maybe had more to do with Kit getting distracted and wandering off than it had to do with anyone else making a conscious decision, but that was okay.

One of the older kids was running a daycare for the fake babies that the upper years were supposed to be taking care of, which was good because Kit didn’t know if stegosauruses were good mommies and she ended up pretending to be Rose’s baby’s mommy a lot because Rose was very busy being a prefect and on Quidditch and she even had a job up at Pearl Street and everything. Although Darlene didn’t seem to be much like Rose yet, Kit was still holding out hope that she and Darlene could be just as close as Rose and Marissa were. But she was so lost in thought about the pretend babies (Rose’s was named Hannah and Kit thought that was a super cute name and that the pretend baby was super cute too, she looked like Rose a lot) that she wasn’t paying attention and banged into someone, who dropped something.

Kit suddenly started paying attention. Her green eyes widened as she took in the older girl’s outfit. Her skirt was so short and her boots were so long it was like it was backwards day! It was so cool!

“Wow your shoes are so cool!” the Lyra exclaimed, staring at them as the older girl searched for the thing she’d lost, which was apparently a lighter. “Wow, why do you have a lighter? Do you light things on fire? What do you light on fire? Why don’t you use your wand?” Kit was scrambling around on her hands and knees at this point too, letting the stegosaurus hood fall down on top of her head. “You’re so pretty!” she said, sticking her nose into the dirt as her eyes scanned the visible area.

This side of a full Rocky Mountain International term was very hectic. She couldn’t believe how insane the upper years were. The most interesting part was that none of them seem interested in making... more